It had been a simple question, a question between friends, a question of friendship.

It had been a ploy, the endgame of a ruse, a means to gain power once again, to bind a dangerous creature of magic.

There was contradiction cleaved through the heart of Glenn Burnie, a man whose entire ethos in life was to untangle such things. That was his one real weapon against the unknown. Maybe that was humanity's only hope in pushing back the darkness.

Now, though, he was lost in darkness.

The Inquisitory was a thing of books and records, something public made personal, armor against the world. It had been his first thought, a refuge, a weapon. There would be no greater enabler of his worst habits than the woman inside, and there'd be no better help in justifying him in all ways. There was a new beginning in there, and that was the last thing he needed. There was an answer in there but it was an easy one. The wrong one.

The Dagger? But the Dagger meant action. It meant Catch. Or Agony. It meant some as of yet undiscovered player, some threat, some entity, some stimulus that might move him forward, past this. This is where he needed to be though. If justification was the easiest choice, action taking it out of his hands was the second easiest.

Where then? Calomel's farm? Dulcie's couch? Treadwell's shop? Catch's shack? Golben, to imprison himself once more until this was sorted?

No, he had to go back to the safest place, the place where he had done his work this last year. He retreated to the Silver Apple, to the accommodation that she had obtained for him (all part of his plan?). He opened his journal. He read and then he wrote.